A little girl's Christmas secrets

Tears ran down my cheeks as I unwrapped my two Christmas presents knowing for the first time in my young life, they weren't from Santa Claus.

I was 7 years old and my little brother was 4. A week before Christmas of 1946, we went exploring in our parents’ bedroom. In a bottom dresser drawer, there lay four wonderful brand new objects that just had to be for us kids.

My brother and I looked at each other with unbelieving stares and wide open mouths. We slammed the drawer shut and never let on we knew what we were getting for Christmas.

On Christmas morning, we kept up the charade and our parents thought we were crying from joy. But it was guilt, and the thought that Mom and Dad might never recover from this if they knew we knew. I hugged the beautiful copper horse I had asked for in a letter to Santa Claus and the wooden Snoopy dog whose back legs churned noisily when I pulled it across the floor. Those gifts were simultaneously the most marvelous and the worst of my first seven Christmases.

In my child's mind, I thought Christmas would never be the same — and I was right.